The Falling Days
by piefaced
Summary: Jim doesn't count the days. Jim Kirk gen


**The Falling Days  
**

* * *

There is a line in dusty red earth that divides the town into two.

One side is to the north, the other, the south. They share a sun, sky, the wreckage of a ship and the curve of the river before it meanders away into the distance, into another town with no line, no dusty red earth and no Jim.

Jim lives in this town, on the north side in a small rundown house. It has a leaky roof and no door. Jim has strung up a piece of cloth, nailed to the door frame to keep the wind out. There isn't much he can do about the chill, or the heat, but he manages from day to day.

Jim calls it living; other might call it survival. It doesn't make a difference, for Jim.

He runs a stall, on the edge of the north side. Jim doesn't sell things, so much as his services. He sells his callused hands, rough from patching up his leaky roof and good at repairing broken things. He sells his wit, his intellect; he sells the knowledge he has about stars and what to do with them. He sells his voice, low and sweet and slightly off tune. He even sells other things, when his knuckles are too sore and his chest too tight to sing.

Jim lives like this, watching the sun rise and set, watching the line in the dusty red earth.

Jim doesn't count the days.

* * *

If Jim marked the beginning and end of every day, he would have a house with walls and walls of lines, but time means nothing, so Jim doesn't count the days and he wakes each morning to the sun in his eyes and wonders what else he can sell.

He shuffles outside, the red expanse of his world before him. It is silent, and the sky is periwinkle blue. Jim waves to his neighbor, who ignores him, and goes to work. He doesn't see anyone else about.

This time, they want his voice.

Jim sits in dusty earth, the sun behind him, and they want his voice, they want his words. Jim has no words to give, nothing he can give without losing something in exchange. But he gives them his father, his mother and Tarsus IV. He gives them his ship, his crew.

He is James Tiberius Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise and James Tiberius Kirk has what Jim doesn't. Jim would be angry, Jim would be sad, but he doesn't have time for either. Neither does James Tiberius Kirk, because he's off saving Earth.

"Jim," they say, and they sound sad.

"He is not responsive," they say and Jim thinks that they are right. They took his voice after all.

* * *

There are no mirrors in Jim's world. Water is not for looking at, but for drinking. Jim doesn't see himself, but they do. They prod and poke at him, but they don't touch him, like they fear he has some contagious disease.

Jim has no voice, but he has a mind. He has a memory and he can travel not only in space and time but in intertext; between pages and lives of others, of himself. He sells each memory for a new a soul, a new a life.

He asks for a radio, a television, anything. They give him a blank book. A blank slate. Frustration curls in his stomach, because he is James Joyce, who writes like he thinks who thinks like he writes and this book is not long enough and he has no pen no pencil and his dirt smudged fingers can only do so much and he doesn't like this doesn't like this at all and he's tired and cannot breathe and he wants his memory back because he doesn't like himself doesn't like this unending thinking or the way his eyes hurt -

* * *

The stranger comes again. He isn't _they,_ but Jim can't say why he differentiates between _they_ and the stranger. Maybe it's his bad haircut. Maybe it's the way he watches Jim.

He never wants to buy anything from Jim, would not, even if Jim offers him the world, the whole of him. Instead, the stranger sells Jim his time and settles in. His eyes close and Jim will count his lashes, will trace the curve of his mouth and the slope of his shoulder, but the sun is setting and Jim doesn't count the days, but he follows the sun.

Jim leaves his stall and walks by the line in dusty red earth. If he looks harder, maybe he can see the webbing that ties him to it, the anchor chained to his neck. It is white, like bone.

A hand falls to his shoulder.

_Hello,_ he mouths. The stranger crouches down by the line in the dusty red earth and hands him a mirror.

Jim would laugh if he could, but he'd sold that, too.

* * *

There is a tree that grows steadily beside his house. It isn't strictly his tree, but nobody claims it, so he does. Jin doesn't remember or know what a tree is, or even how it got there.

He dismisses it out of mind and before he wrapped another piece of cloth around the trunk, he smoothes away the bark with soft hands and blunt nails. He can see scratches and splinters under his skin, but he can't hurt either, because he'd sold that, too.

The stranger carefully takes Jin's hands and bandages them in white cloth.

Jin decides to hang wind chimes on the branches. The stranger steadies him on his stool and hands him string for the chimes.

The chimes float about in the day, feathers and bone and glass rattling and he is Jin, samurai of feudal Japan. He carries around a sword, his heart and the unending violence and he looks for sunflowers in places with no sun.

Jin crosses his legs, and bows his head. He is still, like water, like the sky. Soon, the earthquake will come, and soon, he will move. Jin waits, because he has nothing to do but wait, and the stranger waits with him, because he has sold Jin his time and he has no time to think and the days drift on by.

Jin doesn't count them.

* * *

At the end of each day, Jim will pack up and make the long journey home. He sets down his pack, his wares and water. The stranger doesn't come with him, anymore. Jim doesn't know why, but he doesn't ask.

The stranger never steps into his house, only lingers in the doorway, half-ducked under the cloth Jim nailed up and watches him move around slowly, as if the weight of the heat is pushing him down.

Jim will watch as the night chill creeps in, huddling on the dirt floor, with his arms wrapped around himself, and the side of his face tucked into his neck. Jim would have sold the chill, if he could, but he can't give what he doesn't own and _they_ know that and never offer.

Today must have been different, because the stranger stands next to his doorway as Jim steps in.

Today, Jim turns around and beckons him in.

_Come in_, Jim mouths, and feels like a spider to his stranger's fly.

"No Jim," the stranger says. His hands shake. "No."

Jim feels a roaring in his mind.

It is the end of the world and James Intercisus cannot feel the pain he should be in. It is night and Jim cannot count the days that pass or the sun that rises. His limbs are in twenty eight pieces, but his heart still beats.

He thinks he's dying, but he knows he isn't.

He thinks he is James Intercisis, flayed alive and burning, but he knows he is Jim Kirk, captain of a ship who explores with no fear, and he knows he is also Jin the samurai, searching for something that he doesn't have any more in a time that is not his. And he knows he has to be James the writer, too, and his wife visits and hangs up chimes for his inspiration, and bandages his wounds when he is bleeding.

He waits and hopes and doesn't count the days because he is all of these things and none of them, and he has nothing to sell, nothing to let him be.

He is not dying, but he feels like he is.

* * *

"Jim," says the stranger, and his voice is soft. His face is smooth, still, and his eyes are dark.

Jim doesn't know why the stranger is here, but he has no voice left, now, so he only blinks slowly, mind gone stupid in the rusty chill and fever.

"Goodbye," the stranger says and Jim is suddenly choking, his throat closing up and he is choking on his own vomit, his own spit. His eyes water, and the cloth and nails tighten around his throat, over his mouth and nose. He can't breathe, or think or wonder why.

The chimes fall from the tree in a clatter; he falls with them.

All Jim sees is sad eyes as the stranger moves away.


End file.
